A Conversation with Artist Gary Tyler

Join us for a conversation with multidisciplinary artist Gary Tyler, whose moving textile work “In Memoriam of An Ashanti Warrior, 1996” was recently acquired by the city of Santa Monica and is now featured at City Hall.

Gary Tyler is a fiber artist, currently living and working in Los Angeles, California. In 1974, at the age of 16, Gary Tyler was wrongly convicted of M**der and placed on death row at Angola State Penitentiary in Louisiana. He endured nearly 42 years there, during which the US Supreme Court ruled his sentencing unconstitutional, and was finally released in 2016. While incarcerated, Tyler participated in the Pr*son hospice program, where he mastered the art of quilting, and chaired the Pr*son drama club for almost three decades, using the transformative power of the arts to confront the challenges of incarceration. Now residing in Los Angeles, Tyler dedicates his life to the visual and dramatic arts, using them as tools to foster community and heal the scars of mass incarceration. Tyler is the 2024 Frieze Impact Prize winner, a 2024 Center for Art & Advocacy Fellow, and a 2019 and 2020 Art Matters Awardee. His work is in the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C and the City of Santa Monica Art Fund. Photos courtesy of this Hyper Allergic artcle.

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